It’s a tale as old as time and as persistent as a toddler’s whine. From Baby Mama to Bridesmaids to Sisters to the recently-released Ghostbusters, critics focus on one question:

Are women funny?

This question often turns into a different variation — What’s it like being a female comedian? How does it feel to be breaking new ground? What do you think of the line ‘Women aren’t funny’?

This isn’t a new question, no matter how hard entertainment journalists try to spin it as something fresh and new. In an incomplete, all-too-brief examination of that argument by Gabrielle Moss for Bitch Magazine, she found written evidence of this argument stretching back to 1695:

But even old-timey comedy is rife with women considered funny, including Carol Burnett, Moms Mabley, Gilda Radner, Madeline Kahn, Mae West and Lucille Ball. So why does this question keep coming up like an earworm that refuses to die?

Some of the concern about whether women can be funny can be from the lack of representation. Since 1980, major American film companies have produced nearly 8,500 movies.

However, out of these American-made movies, since only 24 fulfilled the following criteria, according to my research — the Obarski test (a more intense version of the Bechdel rule):

Consist of three or more women;

Not a romantic comedy; and

Would have a rough equivalent in a male comedy (for example 9-to-5’s male equivalent would be Horrible Bosses or Office Space).

These movies include Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids, 9-to-5, Sister Act, A League of Their Own, First Wives Club and Hocus Pocus. Dramedies such as Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes were also included in an attempt to be as generous as possible in criteria and still only 24 movies filled those three rules.

That’s less than a half percent of all the movies made during that time. And according to IMDB, out of the 50 top grossing comedies of all time, only three feature women in a leading role — Bridesmaids, Sister Act and The Devil Wears Prada.

The number of funny women movies following the Obarski test gets more depressing when we throw in the criteria of having women of color in the roles.

So in this case, the discussion of diversity is valuable because it created change within the film industry.

It’s also an interesting marketing tool to keep a movie in the forefront by touting the fact that the main characters aren’t the usual all-white, all-boy comedy. In a town where any news is good news, the recent trolling of the Ghostbusters reboot isn’t greeted with anger, but joy.

Sony movie chief Tom Rothman called the trolling “the greatest thing that ever happened,” in an interview with the Hollywood reporter. “Are you kidding me? We’re in the national debate, thank you. Can we please get some more haters to say stupid things?”

While it’s gross to hear a movie executive basically say that people hate-watching something is great for business, that’s something that’s been unsaid up until Batman vs Superman as critics tried to explain how a widely panned movie made $424 million the first week, only to have that cash flow trickle to $51 million the next. Cynical, but when has Hollywood ever been optimistic and hopeful behind the scenes?

So there are plenty of reasons for the discussion of diversity in Hollywood. But on the other hand, when that’s the only question offered to comedians, it gets dull.

Maya Rudolph, in an interview with The Guardian promoting Sisters, said she’s been fielding the same questions for over a decade:

The problem is that these questions aren’t new. The answers aren’t new. The questions also fail to probe deeper into the movies produced, calling movies with white women leading revolutionary when there are few comedies featuring women of color — excepting the two Saturday Night Live-ers Maya Rudolph and Leslie Jones. It’s a faux-deepness that addresses the diversity issue, but only superficially.

A strange paradox is created — by wanting to highlight the need for diversity, these interviews become reductive and focused not on humor, but on gender, making these women in comedy the exception, as opposed to the norm.

Ultimately the question of women in comedy is a moldy old chestnut that should’ve been thrown out ages ago. Until funny ladies are treated as the norm and not the exception, we’ll be subjected to the same questions and answers.

The Broadway juggernaut Hamilton hasn’t been immune to the discussion regarding diversity in media. Many essays have praised the inclusive cast, flipping the notions we have of our founding fathers on their heads. But others have criticized the lack of depth regarding the female characters, due to the primary focus on the titular character Alexander Hamilton.

But blaming Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer of Hamilton, is unwarranted; the majority of our gaps of knowledge regarding Eliza Schulyer and her sisters are self-inflicted. The fact is there simply isn’t much left written by her — not because someone wanted to highlight her husband over her, but because she burned her letters to him.

This highlights a notion that our cries for inclusivity haven’t plunged into — the difference between erasure by the dominant narrative versus purposely taking oneself out of the spotlight — aka the right to be forgotten or self-editing your image.

The song Burn toys with that idea as Eliza sings that she’s “erasing herself from the narrative” and that future historians “don’t get to know what I said.” While it’s also a clever conceit and a nod to the fact that there isn’t much available about her, it can also be seen as an empowering act. Instead of history dictating who she is — perhaps as the pitiful wife involved in a sex scandal — Eliza simply removes any record of herself, until she is ready to return as her husband’s archivist after his death.

It’s not an uncommon notion — Martha Washington burned all but two letters to her husband George. Even today, as the Internet becomes as ubiquitous as electricity, we’re wrestling with the right to be forgotten and the ability to erase ourselves from the online record. It’s the demand to control our own images, and the longevity of them.

Even the United Nations’ Human Rights Watch has weighed in on this subject, observing that privacy online is “one of our more pressing issues,” according to Human Rights Watch Global Affairs Director Eileen Donahoe.

While the Internet and social media didn’t exist back in the colonial era, even then there was a concern about lasting impressions in the narrative of life.

That legacy is referenced constantly throughout the play with lines like “Who lives/Who dies/Who tells your story,” “What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you’ll never see, “ and “I wanna build something that’s gonna outlive me,” found throughout the musical.

Even Daveed Diggs, who plays both Lafayette and Jefferson observed this is an accurate portrayal of the era in an interview with Vulture:

“Some of my favorite research was reading the letters between Lafayette and George Washington where they’re, like, trading tips about who should build a statue of you. “Oh, you’ve got to have this guy write a poem about you. It’s going to be really big in 100 years.” Information didn’t travel very fast. You were never going to be remembered in your own lifetime. That wasn’t a thing, let alone, like, the day you do something. The show manages to both celebrate it and warn against it, too.”

Perhaps that obsession with legacy is what Eliza was battling against. Instead of having a defined image set in stone thanks to letters and journals, she is free to flit in and out of history, entering and exiting at her own will through the gaps of our knowledge about her. We’ll never know for sure, because she chose to leave no trace of her words.

This self-image control is different than erasure. Erasure is not getting recognition for accomplishments that exist on record. Instead women’s accomplishments are ignored in our everyday rudimentary history lessons, or even worse, credit is given to someone else.

What Eliza and her contemporaries did is different than erasure. But there are plenty of examples of erasure of history created by women, ranging from science to pop culture : diminishing the accomplishments of Annie Jump Cannon and her revolutionizing star classifications, or assuming that Elvis Presley first sang Hound Dog, igniting rock and roll instead of Big Mama Thornton. Erasure ignores that Mary Shelley wrote one of the first science fiction stories with Frankenstein.

Erasure would be Miranda choosing to end Hamilton focusing on Aaron Burr, who serves as narrator throughout the musical. Instead, the final word is given to Eliza as she and the cast list all of her accomplishments. This includes gathering all of her husband’s work (a staggering excess of 22,000 pages of writing); helping record stories from Revolutionary War soldiers; speaking against slavery; and founding an orphanage that exists today.

Miranda chooses to credit Eliza for her work, because without her efforts Alexander Hamilton’s efforts would have become a footnote to history at best.

Eliza sings herself back into the narrative, not to be defined as a wife enduring a sex scandal, but as a historian looking to preserve a huge chunk of history. Her ability to edit and define what is her legacy — through removing herself from the record — is more empowering than people realize.

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What hasn’t been said about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton? Ben Brantley of the New York Times simply states, “Yes, it is that good.”

Which admittedly was a relief to read — since Miranda performed the opening song in 2009 at the White House, there’s been low-key excitement that’s built to a fevered pitch this year. Selfies of the cast with all the Obamas, Meryl Streep and other luminaries bombarded the news. Op-eds discussing the revolutionary idea of racebent casting of the Founding Fathers were published at a fevered pitch, as well as analysis of rap and hip-hop influences on the musical. In other words — the news has been worshipful.

That brings up the question: Does the musical live up to the hype? Brantley thought so, and judging by the reaction online as the cast album dropped digitally on Friday (with a livestream on NPR a few days ahead of time) — it exceeds the hype.

By racebending the cast this cast looks like modern America.

Hamilton brings a relatable, human face to the blah icons that are distant and unblemished from our high school history classes. The entire cast — minus one person — are all people of color, bringing a relatable face for the audience — this cast looks like modern America. Halmiton also reminds us that in politics, much like humanity, nothing really changes — everything old is new again. There’s scheming, angry cabinet meetings (reimagined as rap battles) and sniping at each other via the media. Hell, Alexander Hamilton has the dubious honor of giving America its first publicized Presidential sex scandal.

Manuel’s omnivorous musical tastes — the soundtrack is filled with references to rap, R&B and other musicals — ensure Hamilton is chock-full of musical Easter eggs for people to sift through and decode. But it never feels like getting lectured by some music hipster, instead it’s like a delightful little present that you might not catch the first time, but on the second (or third, or fourth) listening you pick it up and start grinning.

It also helps that the music is just that good. There’s no point in filling something with references unless the product is quality because it degenerates into a group of people quoting Simpsons at each other. Which isn’t bad, but it doesn’t lead to something to worth this praise. The music is layered and rich to match the lyrics filled with little non-sequiturs like “I’M A GENERAL WHEE!” in Stay Alive or the sarcastic “Awesome. Wow.” from King George in What Comes Next? Humor normally isn’t part of our history lessons, so things like this add splashes of color and life.

The cast also deserves major praise for bringing the lyrics to life Renee Elise Goldsberry is a powerhouse as Angelica Schuyler that deserves recognition for her tongue-twisting powers in Satisfied — she brings an ache to the song while at the same time keeping up with the breakneck pace. Phillipa Soo’s performance in Helpless and Burn is a one-two punch in having a crush and getting your heart broken (thankfully it’s not back to back, unless you’re a masochist and play them back to back). Leslie Odom Jr.’s cautious and careful Aaron Burr is a perfect counterpoint to the impetuous Hamilton. Daveed Diggs’ Thomas Jefferson is a colonial Morris Day to antagonize Hamilton in a flashier way than Burr. Chris Jackson as George Washington brings an authority and gravity as perhaps the only person in the room who thinks not about the present, but the future and the shaping of the newborn nation. I could go on and on, to be honest. The cast is just that strong.

While many of us online may never be lucky enough to see the show on Broadway with the original cast, I am anticipating the future of this musical. I can’t wait to see high schools perform this, igniting curiosity in people to maybe dig a little deeper and learn more about our history and finding the common threads from the past and present that paint the picture as to what makes us all uniquely American.

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If you watch television these days, there’s a lot of teasing regarding “OMG moments” — those moments that have social media and the water cooler blowing up in reaction and comment. While it isn’t a new thing — anyone remember the Who Shot JR? — this trend seems to have intensified the past few years as networks try and get people react online.

Some of it is engagement between fans and the production crew, some of it is just over-the-top moments where everyone’s jaws are left gaping as we’re left wondering if these things can be done. During my TV binges, I’ve noticed lots of shows that capitalize on that, but I’ve found it unsatisfactory, like a piece of candy with a weird aftertaste, as I dissect the moment later and realize that a character’s motivation was abruptly changed to fit a situation or I find a plot hole one could drive a truck through.

Which is why I’m pleasantly surprised by Jane the Virgin. Maybe it’s because it’s on the CW that it’s been allowed to flourish in a way that it couldn’t on a bigger network. The show is seriously filled with OMG moments — I mean, the insemination that kicks off the whole show is the original OMG moment — and it hasn’t let up at all. I think it says something that the revelation as to who shadowy drug cartel Sin Rostro was is probably one of the most mild OMG moments of this show.

But what makes all of this work is that the characters move and react organically to the situation. While some people didn’t support Jane wanting full custody of the baby, from her perspective it made total sense — having a child near the woman who shoved her grandmother down the stairs (this show) and the hotel’s reputation as “the murder hotel” (one of the funniest lines in the show). Michael’s initial reaction to Jane’s pregnancy is understandable, given the plans he had for their life together exploded.

None of the characters felt like they were sacrificed on the altar of the OMG moment. Instead, they created the OMG moment by how they are as people and their motivations (of course Petra would steal her ex-husband’s sperm — AGAIN — the woman was emotionally manipulated). It’s exaggerated, but it makes sense when you take it from their viewpoint.

Speaking of Petra — it would be easy to make her a scheming gold-digging villainess, but the show’s done us a favor by creating a complicated woman who wants her ex-husband to love her again and is fighting for her share of money. But by opening up her world and including her manipulative mother (this show does amazing work with mothers and the different methods of mothering — from Xo’s freewheeling style to Magda’s controlling issues), a stalker ex-boyfriend and even the strained push-pull of her relationship with Rafael, you get a sense as to who she is and what she wants. Her motivations are complicated and numerous, which gives the character many notes to play with, instead of just one.

In contrast, I could see Jane being easily reduced to a virtuous woman being thrown around by the insanity of the world around her, but it hasn’t been that. This show erased the idea that a “good” character is a boring character. She owns her sexuality (in this case, by not having it), by negotiating the parameters and dealing with the situation. She’s got heated kisses and chemistry filled scenes with both Rafael and Michael, but it never turns into a “WE SHOULD STOP NOW!” moment, because it’s clear people respect her decision and are willing to go with it because they respect her. She calls the shots in the terms of sex in her relationships. And she demands respect — from telling Michael in the pilot that it’s her turn to be selfish for a bit and plotting with Rafael to manipulate Petra to get Magda out of the hotel. It’s clear that good doesn’t mean meek.

I can’t even say how much I appreciate this after show after show currently places emphasis on the anti-hero. Maybe I’m sick of a world of Walter Whites and Don Drapers, but it’s hard to be honest and good at times. It’s more convenient to slide into the banal and selfish. One of my favorite moments with Jane was when she admitted to Michael that she had a fantasy about Rafael. That created a conflict by simply wanting to state the truth, when a lie would’ve been so much simpler, but as a character, Jane wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she did that — relationships are about openness to her.

Which brings up the love triangle between Rafael, Michael and Jane — I can’t think of any love triangle where all sides were compelling and interesting. It’s easy to make one side manipulative and trying to break up the other half, but it’s never been that. Both sides are compelling.

Rafael almost seems like destiny with the insemination as well as their kiss five years ago. However he also doesn’t seem to understand Jane as well and the way they tackle life is very different — he (rightfully) feels like life is short and you have to move fast, while she is a planner and needs her space and time to make her decisions. It’s a realistic hurdle to many relationships. He’s trying, but the pressure from him to have Jane take him back is also a sign that he’s still learning she needs her space and she can’t be manipulated as easily as some other conquests.

But Michael post-breakup has also shown a respectful caring for Jane that went beyond marrying her and their plans together (hilariously illustrated in several portrait shots). It’s not the family he envisioned, but he’ll deal with it. He’s given Jane the space she needs, but also at the same time said he doesn’t want to be chosen because he’s considered “safe.” He’s demanding his own agency in this relationship, which is also understandable. No one wants to be the second choice when it comes to love.

Now add in the self-absorbed, but also selfless, Rogelio; stern and loving Alba, who also has a flexible view of religion when it comes to family; Xiomara who is a more free-wheeling mother, but also fiercely protective of her daughter; and a host of other characters, and one would think this show would be overstuffed or plodding, but it never feels like that thanks to the deft pacing of the show.

That in and of itself is a marvel — it’s rare you can see a show spin so many plates and weave in so many loose threads without falling apart. I was surprised to see Magda come back as well as the show address Alba’s fall, but they did so with seamless integration and it helped give new life to Michael and Jane as well as fuel conflict between Jane and Petra (not to mention some hilarious fantasy wrestling sequences, another great OMG moment). Even the finale, with Sin Rostro returning was such a surprise and menace that I’m excited to see how they handle that in Season 2.

People have talked about the narrator and the use of white typeface to keep people abreast on what’s going on with the show, and I won’t belabor the point by saying I agree it’s a brilliant idea, because it is and it’s done so deftly that they’ve become another character and the friend you’re watching the show with.

What I give credit to is the showrunner — Jennie Snyder Urman for demanding and creating such an intricate plotline and quick pacing, as well as the recognition that the narrator and typeface add to the show and help remind viewers of past events. As the show goes into season 2, I’m going to be excited to see what they do and how things progress. It’s not often you see a show so confident in its vision from the pilot onward, so a show like this should be savored.

For me, this show has been a sheer pleasure to watch and it’s because everything is firing on all cylinders — the cast, the production, the crew, even the music work so well together. I can’t wait to see what happens in October and I hope that other people start discovering this gem.